How
to infuse fresh life into a product the sales of which are stagnating?
How to make your product appeal to a totally new segment of buyers?
How to tide over mid-life crises? How to become young and sporty? Simple
questions these if you happen to be Hyundai Motor India. And its answer
is, chop off the rear end - well, not wantonly but with a carving knife,
leaving a shapely protrusion in its place. As the crowds burst into
applause and viva chants, christen the new product just that and then
if that product happens to be a car, invite OVERDRIVE to road-test it
and present the findings in the October issue of the magazine. So is
it Viva Hyundai? Or Hyundai Viva!
On a flight into
Mumbai about a month back some parts of a conversation happened to drift
into my ears... Viva is a grand marketing stunt... quite peppy... red
hot and sexy... saved the fortunes of the company... till I drifted
off into some other thought process, oblivious to where that conversation
went from there. I was soon to learn that it was not Hyundai's Viva
that the conversation was about but Channel V's divas, although it could
very well have been about the car (save the last bit though). For Viva
is setting quite a few imaginations on fire with its very own brand
of music, slick promotions and eye-catching clothing and accessories.
And here I am talking about the car and not the pop group, for I do
not much care for their brand of music.
For the Hyundai Accent Viva is basically a hatchback or rather semi-notchback
or a five-door version of the Hyundai Accent Tornado. While the Tornado
was a slightly more powerful Accent, the Viva is not just a five-door
Tornado, is what we discover on putting the car through the rigours
of an OVERDRIVE road test. |
